4 ms·
It is very difficult to disentangle the role of various nutritional elements in the rising tide of obesity. A number of factors have been occurring at the same
by jrapdx3 11y ago
It is very difficult to disentangle the role of various nutritional elements in the rising tide of obesity. A number of factors have been occurring at the same time, such as, alterations in amount and sources of protein, changing proportion and composition of dietary fat, and of course, large increases in the amount of sugar (and to lesser extent, other carbohydrate) consumption.
So in a sense you are right, consuming more sugar while continuing to have high intake of saturated, trans and n-6 fat is certainly a recipe for producing metabolic disease.
However the level of unhealthful fat intake has been fairly steady in recent decades while the proportion of sugar increased. This is the basis for the focus on reducing sugar intake as a way to improve the health of populations.
- fpoling 11y agoI am not so sure about steady fat intake. One of the recent tendencies was replacing animal fat with oil in various bakeri products as a way to reduce price. As a vegan I should welcome that, however one typically needs much more cheap oil in calories than butter to get a product with about the same properties. So we get increase in calories when all of them are stored as fat. Again, as a vegan I am very aware of that as I gained about 4 kilos before I realized my mistake with bakery with too much oil. It is true that to compensate for the worsen taste with cheap oils in bakery products, the producers add more sugar. However medical experiments that I am aware showed that humans are very bad at converting excessive sugar into fat. The body rather generates heat from extra carbohydrates than converts them to fat for storage unless one eats really way too much of sugar. That level is still well above what is found in a typical current western diet.